Panoramic video typically involves high resolution footage to capture a large field view (i.e., an entire 360 degree field of view (FOV)). Streaming panoramic video involves a high bitrate link. Typical networks, like the Internet, have limited streaming bandwidth. Cellular or wireless networks also typically have limited bandwidth. Streaming high bitrate video over 3G/4G/LTE networks consumes a lot of data. In conventional panoramic video playback, on the display side, the user sees only a small part of the panoramic image. The small part of the panoramic image that the user sees is called a region of interest (ROI).
Conventional panoramic video playback typically streams the entire panoramic field of view (i.e., a 360 degree field of view). Streaming the entire panoramic field of view allows the region of interest to be changed in response to the user moving his or her head. A change in region of interest needs to happen very fast (typically <20 ms) to avoid a noticeable delay on the display side. Longer delays tend to provide a poor user experience, and in many cases trigger a sickness feeling.
Operating unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones) has become a popular hobby. One particular area that has increased in popularity is racing camera-equipped drones. Drones can be used in combination with live video feeds (i.e., watched using video headsets) from the camera-equipped drones to provide a first-person view flying experience. A first-person video feed from the drone allows for an immersive flying experience.
Drones can be controlled remotely by a pilot. To provide an enjoyable first-person flying experience, the video feed from the drone should be transmitted with low-latency. Flying a drone with a camera provides an opportunity to capture panoramic aerial images. However, flying a drone and communicating remotely with a pilot involves wireless communication that has limited bandwidth available.
It would be desirable to implement low bitrate encoding of panoramic video to support live streaming over a wireless peer-to-peer connection.